The recent ascendency of the term “deep state” presents an opportunity to explore some of the elements which may comprise the entities that lay behind the term. Despite the long history of concerned politicians and citizens attempting to warn the public of the dangers and potential harms of a growing “shadow government” influencing international policy, such a discussion has largely existed under the radar of the general public.

One of the earliest and most public warnings came from president Eisenhower during his farewell address in 1961, when he cautioned us to become aware of the growing power and influence of what he termed “the military-industrial complex”. While the entire speech can be seen on You Tube or read on the web, the following quote will give you the gist of his message:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Eisenhower believed that our freedoms and democracy were being threatened by the power and influence being wielded by the growing surreptitious alliances between the military and corporate/commercial entities. Soon these “special interest groups” would take hold of the behind the scenes world of lobbyists which forever pressure, seduce and bully our politicians into supporting their surreptitious goals and agendas.

Another major player in the shadow world of the deep state is the CIA and related intelligence agencies. In essence the intelligence world is an excessive perversion of the old maxim that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The benefits and goodness of the intelligence community is totally based on one’s perspective. The bulk of the surreptitious and immoral actions of the intelligence community violates every tenet of an open and free democracy, but is posed as necessary and vital for the long term success of our nation. As long as they are working on our side and defending our freedoms and democracy we excuse their methods and total lack of transparency and moral ethics.

Yet, each and every decade since the inception of the CIA there are major scandals that emerge which question both their usefulness and their benefit to our democracy and freedoms of US citizens. Many of the unsavory tactics including propaganda, assassinations, torture, control of the media, perceptual management, rigging of elections and sabotaging of the actions of populist movements abroad not only open us up to blowback, but are often exposed by investigative journalists as being used domestically on our own citizenry.

While the universe of spies is dependent on deception and stealth the heads of the intelligence community often make statements which seem to expose the very reason we should not view them as necessary or an ally of our freedom and democracy. Two of the many dozens of possible quotes follow.

“The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media.” Bill Colby Former CIA Director

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” William Casey, former CIA Director

The state department may be the best example of the deep state shadow government in that they are not elected, often not appointed by the president, are highly influential in long term planning and policy formation and whose careers may span through many administrations. The following infamous quote, which is actually a compilation of ideas express in a single declassified document, will give you and idea of the role and scope of the state department. This quote is by George Kennan the state departments first planning and policy head whose basic policies many feel guided our actions for a few decades.

We have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population…. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity…. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives…. We should cease to talk about vague and … unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.

I would invite you to read the entirety of the document as well as type in his name in a research engine to read more of his vision of global politics region by region. His comments and recommendations regarding Germany, Russia, Africa, and the middle and far east are still vital in terms of understanding the actions the US takes both militarily and politically.

Capitalism is a Real Killer

While admittedly the sample size of released documents and reliable quotes by government planners and deep state insiders is relatively small, they are very consistent in their conviction of a need for their to be two separate messages one public and one top secret. The public message of intention is littered with “sentimental” and “unrealistic”objectives such as freedom, democracy, human rights and the raising of living standards, while the internal message and goal is to maintain the global disparity and economic hegemony of the US empire.

The cognitive dissonance between the domestic and international actions of our military and our government evaporates once one assumes that capitalism and not democracy is our guiding principle and goal. Our creating havoc and installing and defending dictators while squelching populist movements abroad becomes quite understandable and consistent when viewed from our desire to maintain economic hegemony and market dominance.

The battle to keep intact the US’s privileged position as global leader and lone superpower is waged on two fronts. First we must prevent any counter economic ideology such as communism or socialism to gain a foothold anywhere in the world. Second we must make sure that we effectively prevent any other nation from usurping or even reducing our commanding position as the economic power or having any form of currency rival the US dollar as the global reserve currency.

Keenan was very concerned about the threat that Germany still posed as an industrial and economic juggernaut if it were allowed to quickly heal and rebuild. He discussed the importance and necessity of keeping Germany a divided nation at least until the time in which western Europe and Britain were economically strong enough to withstand their political and economic might.

The strategy of keeping a nation divided in order to stall the growth of socialism or communism, as well as prevent the nation from becoming a major economic player has been used often by the US. I addition to Germany one could add Korea and Vietnams as examples. Yet, on recent years, especially in the middle east and Africa we have done our best to splinter a large nations into a number of number of splinter nations or warring entities. Iraq, Afghanistan , Venezuela and Libya are prime examples with the Yugoslavia and the USSR also falling into that category.

Isolating and punishing nations through economic sanctions due to a nation’s desire to reduce or sever economic ties and dependencies with the US is also a often used tool to “protect our way of life” and role as economic overlord to the world. Cuba and Venezuela come to mind in addition to many other nations including Iraq, Iran, Russia and Syria.

Often the list of nations we have placed economic embargoes and sanctions on involve political and social leaders who have led movements and adopted policies which greatly improve the autonomy and quality of life of many of its citizens. Castro, Chavez and Gaddafi are examples of leaders whose documented evidence of significant growth in terms of health care, education, women’s and workers rights, as well as an increased voice in political groups but were minimized or ignored due to alleged or highly emphasized violations of human rights.

In the case of Gaddafi, Nelson Mandela is on record saying that he felt Gaddafi did more for the freedoms and advancement of the African continent than other any personage. It may in fact be this unifying movement as well as his advocating for an uncoupling from the US dollar and the institution of a common continental currency which made him vile and unacceptable to the US. One should keep in mind that most leaders of populist social equality movements have been opposed, resisted and labeled as terrorist or public enemies. This celebrated list of dangerous individuals who are enemies of the state would include Dr. Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Gandhi as well as Nelson Mandela, and of course the recent list of whistle blowers and people of conscious in our own nation.

The battle to keep US imperialism and its economic and political dominance afloat has been fought both vehemently and violently. The US quickly intervened anytime nations show any signs of adopting measures which foster economic autonomy or an adopting of a more egalitarian system. Since and including Vietnam, and maybe even Korea, our actions have caused nations to become destabilized and politically chaotic often mired in seemingly endless civil war, this list would include at least Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya. Our desire to go to war and destabilize nations seems to be planned and intentional as was publicly intimidated by Wesley Clarke on many occasions such as the interview you can watch via the following link.

When your primary goal is to maintain and protect economic hegemony and disparity you literally can’t afford to be kind, charitable, generous or share the bounty of the planet. A few decades ago the thought that we went to war for oil would have been thought of and labeled as crazy conspiracy theory. Yet, today going to war for oil rather than freedom and democracy is accepted and even publicly supported.

It is only logical that a nation which places economic dominance as its primary objective would need to be a participant if not leader in any highly profitable market, especially one whose product is in the hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars. The arms industry is one example of this size market, and as we all know, despite our shouts of peace, freedom and democracy we are the worlds biggest arms dealer. In fact during the Obama administration our share of the arms market recorded one of its biggest gains.

The international drug trade is another extremely lucrative market. With this in mind it is hard to imagine that the US government could afford to let another nation usurp or even reduce our economic dominance by refusing to engage in the illegal drug trade. As Keenan observed way back in 1948 that the need for the US to “deal in straight power concepts” and not be blinded by sentimental ideology would soon become essential for our continued economic superiority. The economic and resulting political power of the lucrative international drug trade is just too much to avoid through sentimental ideological morality.

With this in mind it would make sense that our two longest wars have been in Vietnam and Afghanistan. In the 60’s the “golden triangle” centered in Vietnam and Laos. The possibility of all that money going to waste our in the hands of communists was probably too much for us to bear, likewise a similar reality was posed by Afghanistan.

Almost every decade a book or two emerge which investigate and try to substantiate the CIA’s active role in managing and monitoring the international drug trade if not being a major direct player in the black market space. Here are a few links which seem to support the logical conclusion that the US is a major if not then major player in the international drug trade. Here are a couple of links which deal with the US and poppy production in Afghanistan.

Admittedly any direct connection between the CIA or US government and the illegal drug trade is highly speculative. Yet our practical need to not be left out of, or even marginalized in the participation of the enormous profits gleaned by the sellers and purveyors of the global illegal drug market is hard to deny.

It is hard for any argument of our mission being to spread freedom and democracy around the globe to stand up to the reality of our dominance of global arm production and sales, the enforcement of economic sanctions and our initiating of perpetual war around the globe. Economic sanctions seldom impact the ruthless dictators and immoral leaders who routinely kill their own people though brutal torture and chemical weapons. Instead, sanctions, such as the one we inflicted on Iraq kill hundreds of thousands of innocent including children and other non military civilians. Our attacks kill far more people than the atrocities we claim to justify and motivate our military and lethal interventions. The lower estimate of 500,000 Iraqi’s killed through our economic sanctions far out number the total number of people who globally have died due to the actual or even alleged use of “weapons of mass destruction”.

Whether it be a terribly misguided attempt to spread freedom or democracy or because we want to retain our privileged economic position, one thing is indisputable, and that is we have killed millions of people to acquire this objective. The conservative estimate is somewhere between and 20 and 30 million people from over 37 nations (see link below). This 20 t0 30 million people mostly non military or even oppositional to our stated objectives does not include those maimed or seriously injured, which most estimates would expand the pool by a factor of eight resulting in a figure closer to 160 million people. Even that estimate of the human damage and destruction caused by our wars and interventions would not include those additional people who suffered from PTSD for what they saw, their life in a war zone, or the perpetual fear of being in a land where drone attacks are a real possibility.

George Orwell is one of those who expressed deep concerns regarding what happens when economic superiority becomes a nation’s top priority., and their true motives become hidden or denied. Here are a few pertinent quotes.

“War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.”
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”

While I feel that our current course is dangerous for all on the planet, I do not feel that we are totally capable of our being able to steer space shift earth in a more healthy life affirming manner. Yet, in order to do so we probably have to “Deep Six the Deep State” as the title of this blog states.

I’ll close with links to a few songs which express my concerns and fears regarding our obsession with war and maintaining economic disparity in a more artistic manner.